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I know there's another version of this in the subreddit, but the one I saw was a year old and I couldn't add comments, so I'm submitting this one! I want to talk about it!

Mostly, I have to say I was disappointed with AFfC. It was confusing, at parts, and I couldn't believe how many of the 'main' characters were neglected, which is a part of the Martin's intention, but still...

I'd like to hear about others' experiences with the book and maybe hear some suggestions for when I finish 'A Dance with Dragons.' I am thinking maybe some Patrick Rothfuss, but other ideas, obviously, are welcome.

AFfC is my favorite in the ASOIAF series so far. I posted my reasons for this before - I just love the amount of unique and interesting places we get to visit in this book, and Martin's descriptions read like a travelogue in this one more than the others. Braavos has got to be one of the most unique cities I have ever read about, and the chapters set in Oldtown and the palaces of Dorne give you an incredible sense of being there.

In my opinion (and I know this might be controversial), if you read the books for the characters, you've got your priorities wrong. With people dying left and right, you can't become too attached to them - in fact I think an important point of this story is how insignificant individual characters are in the grand scheme of things. It's really about Westeros as a whole; the "protagonist", if you want to call it that, is the land itself. I really can't fault the book for only featuring half the cast.

As far as the plot is concerned, AFfC has one of my favorite twists in the series, when Jaime burns Cersei's letter in the end. Really shows how far he's developed as a man with principles. No grand battles in this one, but some awesome scheming and game-of-thronesing with all the events in King's Landing.

After ADwD, might I suggest the Dunk & Egg short stories? In case you haven't heard of them, they're stand-alone stories set a hundred years before the events of ASOIAF, published in the gaps between the main books. There's three of them now, and they're all great reads - they're a little more difficult to get hold of, but /r/asoiaf has some help in its FAQ.

First of all, thanks for pointing me to /r/asoiaf. I'm an idiot for not looking for that subreddit first!

Secondly, I can certainly see your point about the protagonist being the world of Westeros itself. However, it feels somewhat like a bait-and-switch after book three, because of the time invested in the characters in their particular section of the world. At least hitting them as touchstones would be more satisfying than no contact at all.

Seeing some of the main characters, in addition to being introduced to new characters, would have also eased the transition. This is a Lannister-heavy book, and though I do enjoy the Lannisters, some more familiarity would have been helpful.